A Prayer for the Crown-Shy: A Monk and Robot Book: 2 (Monk & Robot)

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Don’t think of yourself as a problem... If they have an issue with you, that’s on them. And it’s not even about you, personally. They just … don’t understand what you are. Or maybe they can’t fit you into their beliefs, and that scares them. The unknown makes us stupid sometimes." As does a robot. Mosscap discovers that it has no answer for itself to its own question. It doesn’t know – at least not yet – what it needs or what its fellow robots need. I sincerely hope that the series will continue, and that we’ll get to follow Mosscap and Dex as they hunt for their own answers. This is possible in part because capitalism no longer exists on Panga, a concept that can be at once exhilarating and also inconceivable for a reader like myself living in the United States in 2022. At one point Dex patiently explains their culture’s version of currency to Mosscap, a publicly accessible virtual exchange system called pebs:

I'm the world's biggest fan of odd couple buddy road trips in science fiction, and this odd couple buddy road trip is a delight: funny, thoughtful, touching, sweet, and one of the most humane books I've read in a long time. We could all use a read like this right now.” —Sarah PinskerI’m still grieving. And there are still waterfalls, even and in fact especially, when no one is watching. And there are still books just like this. That meet you where you are, and remind you in the clearest, warmest way, that you are not alone. Anyway, if I had to say something even remotely evaluative about the book, I’d say it suffers mildly—like a mouse’s squeak of mildly, that’s how mildly—from having a less well-defined journey than the first book. Psalm is a series of strung-together scenes leading to the specific end point at the abandoned hermitage. In Prayer, because Sibling Dex and Mosscap are visiting villages mostly at random, the story is more a collection of incidents. I did come up with a slightly stretched metaphor about the first one being like a series of beads upon a rosary and the second more like a collection of psalms but then I remembered the first one is Psalm and the second one is Prayer, so I was talking nonsense. Point is: this one, arguably, maybe, if you give a damn, might feel a tiny bit less structured than the first one. I didn't give a damn. I loved it anyway. The communities in Panga are like that. They grow but so big and no further, so that each village has enough – actually more than enough – to sustain itself and its people. No one needs to want for more. Sigh. I needed this. In so many ways I needed this. It’s such a lovely, thoughtful, introspective story of seeking answers but being okay with not finding them yet. Of friendship and quiet companionship and just … being. It’s more than a little bit of a repeat of last year’s “A Psalm for the Wild Built” but it digs a little deeper as this time Mosscap asks its question “What do people need?” to people other than Sibling Dex and Dex finds themself seeking the answer for themself. Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. This has not impacted my review which is unbiased and honest.)

Neither do we, if we remember to stop and look,” Dex said. “But that’s the point of a shrine, or an idol, or a festival. The gods don’t care. Those things remind us to stop getting lost in everyday bullshit. We have to take a sec to tap into the bigger picture. That’s easier said than done for a lot of folks—you’ll see.” They paused for a moment, reflecting. “You know, it’s funny, the way you said that.” We do meet a diverse and interesting collection of humans, though, including a … I hesitate to say love interest … a friendly casual sex interest for Sibling Dex (the way this encounter is handled is so well done: there’s attraction, honesty and mutual respect on both sides, and breakfast, but no expectation of anything more or different between them at this time), a representative of group of humans who have chosen to reject all technology (again, this is handled with the delicacy that is typical of this author’s writing) and we get to meet Sibling Dex’s family. Who are A Lot in the best/worst way.After three hundred years of humans and robots not interacting at all, the news that one has deliberately come out of the wilds to talk to humans is Big News. Sibling Dex is happy to take Mosscap with them along the roads where they’ve made their living serving tea and deal with the inundation of requests for Mosscap’s presence but Dex is leery of being so much in the limelight, too. The two travel to many settlements which delights Mosscap. This is the second volume of a utopian SF series Monk and Robot. The first volume, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, was nominated for Hugo, Nebula and Locus awards this year, I’ve read and reviewed it here. I read it as a part of monthly reading for August 2022 at SFF Hot from Printers: New Releases group.